Wow. BTW, Who makes the flags? Have a guess and go to the Westfalia website. Freebies, if you have a really good printer!

Imagine mass producing/painting to this quality.

Intrigued by the history of these folk. Could they really stand in a pitched battle against contemporary Imperial Russian or Austrian or indeed any Western European army? I could imagine harassing lines of supply and guerrilla warfare. But that camel with the cannon ……….great model……but the poor dromedary….it is just not possible (well not after the first shot anyway). Cannot imagine these at Mt St Jean ( I do accept that was not the only battle of the Napoleonic era…there was QB, Ligny and maybe Wavre as well I will concede. The rest were skirmishes)

Apologies, I know nothing about their contribution, other than the vague idea they did not get on with the Tsar.

What about the stripes in that bottom picture? We try to do tartan, but that is amazing………….real skill

>>>>>>>>>>Intrigued by the history of these folk. Could they really stand in a pitched battle against contemporary Imperial Russian or Austrian or indeed any Western European army? I could imagine harassing lines of supply and guerrilla warfare. But that camel with the cannon ……….great model……but the poor dromedary….it is just not possible (well not after the first shot anyway)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes they could go toe-to-toe with Russians, on a smaller scale there are records of Persian bayonet charges routing Russians, smaller forces defeated and larger army-size actions that were stalemates.

The Persians don't inflict a crushing defeat on a large Russian army, in general terms their armies were not well led (with some exceptions) and woefully supplied as the nation's economy was a basket case. A good army was often assembled but in a few years largely disbanded for want of money.

The Persian generals seem to make a range of elementary mistakes to the exasperation of their European advisors.

In the war vs Turks in the 1820s the Persians have two armies of 30-40K men, a royal strategic reserve of perhaps 30K (at a real guess), other forces in the east and scattered in forts. I doubt they could put more than 60k men in one place and that would be padded with large numbers of irregular cavalry of uneven quality, so your giant European armies would over-match them – if they could get to Persia.

Later in the century they appear to be gathering really large armies vs the Brits in the 1850s but peace breaks out before they get into action.

The zamburak camel gunners were a common part of their armies, I think I've now read 8-10 European eye-witnesses who describe them shooting from the saddle, but they could also detach the gun to shoot, presumably for increased accuracy.

Persian illustrations of them in battle show them lined up in a fire-fight against Russian guns, or routing Russian infantry. They seem to have been used in a few different ways – sorta skirmishing in waves where the men would ride forwards shoot circulate back to a point re-load and repeat. Other roles were to shoot and then retire to extend the infantry firing line, and to help out other artillery. They would also try to engage enemy guns with enfilading fire.